Japanese names on Ceramics
Look it up: 2000 names
The excel file is an extensive list of nearly 2,000 makers of Japanese ceramics. The names are written in both Latin script and kanji. It helps you to find the maker of your own Satsuma, even when you have identified only one character of the mark on it. Once you have found the name of a maker, you can also see if it is an individual maker or a company name, and get an indication of the period in which it was made. The file was created by mr. Martin Michels, Japantiek.nl, and is part of his huge collection of brands and signatures on Japanese ceramics. Satsuma: the joy of beauty is grateful to have mr. Michels permission to share it with you.
How to use it.
The Look it up file is an Excel-file. You can search on specific words or parts of a word by using the search screen. You can also search by using Japanese characters. That makes it possible to find the name of the maker of your Satsuma object, even when you are not familiar with Japanese language and have no clue what is on it
As an example, see the picture of this mark, what consist of four characters: 長谷川製. The last one seems to be 製 "sei /made by" and is not an actual part of the name.
Try to focus on the most simple part of the three characters of the name 長谷川, in this case it is the last character: 川
Look in the database, starting with the first name and scroll down, untill you recognize this character. You wil find it in the name Chikusen: 竹川. Compare the characters with the mark depicted here, and it's obvious that Chikusen is not he right name. But it is very useful to find it, because now you can copy the 川 character, and put it in the search screen.
From now on the computer looks for you, and will continue the search for names with 川 in it. All you have to do is to compare what you see on the screen with the mark what you want to identify. It will not take a long time before you find 長谷川 as being the name of Hasegawa. You will also find that this is the name of an individual maker and not a company name, and that he was active during the Meiji period.
Now you have identified the name of the maker, you can check in the Marks & makers file if you can find more examples of this mark. Since there are almost 2000 names in the Look it up file, and only 500 names in the Marks & makers file, this will not allways be the case. But in this case the name Hasegawa can also be found in the data file Marks & makers, with several examples of his mark, and in the file Makers examples you will find a depiction of his work. Since you know now a makers name, it is also possible to search on the internet and see if there is more information about this maker. In this case: Hasegawa produced very fine quality items, as shown on this wonderfull bamboo sleeve vase.
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